Metagenomic Predictions - Australian Dairy Herd Improvement ...

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Elizabeth Ross www.dairyfuturescrc.com.au. Thankyou: Ben Hayes. Ben Cocks. Kathryn Guthridge. Peter Moate. Leah Marett ...
Metagenomic Predictions: Predicting enteric methane production from the rumen microbiome

Elizabeth Ross / August 2012

CH4 Measurements – Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas >20x stronger than CO2

– Measuring CH4 is:

– Produced in the rumen

2. Stressful / training required

– Negative correlation with FCE

3. Expensive

– Environmental concerns

4. Low throughput

1. Difficult

Rumen Microbes – Humans have 10x more bacterial than human cells – 25x more bacteria in the rumen than cow cells – Significant associations between microbiome and health in humans – CH4 is produced by methanogens in the cow rumen – Is there a strong association between methane production and the rumen microbiome in lactating Australian dairy cattle?

Method Sequence microbiome: metagenome

Ensure metagenomes are repeatable

Use ‘extreme phenotypes’ to predict methane in FCE herd

Collect ‘extreme phenotypes’ samples

Conclusions – Rumen profiles are repeatable – Likely that rumen profiles have a large effect on CH4 production – Currently only have small datasets – More phenotyped animals needed

Future Work – Predicting CH4 in large numbers of animals – Rumen profiles from tongue/mouth swabs – GWAS for CH4 using microbiome profiles – Metagenomic predictions of other traits (e.g. FCE)

Elizabeth Ross

www.dairyfuturescrc.com.au Thankyou: Ben Hayes Ben Cocks Kathryn Guthridge Peter Moate Leah Marett

Elizabeth Ross

www.dairyfuturescrc.com.au

Questions & Comments?